Heraclitusstudent's comments

I doubt that Nellie Bowles had a directive from high up to take down JP. I think she's just a prisoner of her biasses, as she was programmed as a hummanities major in a modern university. Thus not capable of objectively looking at Jordan Peterson - although she claims to have considered many of his videos. Possibly she simply lacks the objectivity and or bandwidth to give him honest consideration. In any case Ben Shapiro earns points with me on this one, and the NYT loses.

Once you feel part of a (political) tribe, you can't escape it's narratives. When confronted with cognitive dissonance about these narratives, your brain will automatically rationalize things to revert toward consonance. The smarter you are, the better you are at it. Therefore everyone that disagrees with your narratives can ONLY be motivated (overtly or covertly) by the narratives of the out-group, i.e. the right wing themes like "war on women", "white nationalism", etc, etc... The only alternative would be an emotionally painful reassessment of your group and your own identity. This is how propaganda works. This is how tribalism works. It is in that sense irrelevant whether she was instructed to do it. She is absolutely not capable to think anything better.

You will see the exact same when right wingers on patnet claim everyone on the left are nazis, or communists, or "collectivists" (or any other keyword reserved for the lunacy of the out-group, and the use of which instantly terminates critical thinking), typically taking anecdotes as proofs of the matter.

Luckily, long form discussions, on podcasts or youtube, make quick work of the blatant dishonesty. All the SJWs achieve by debating JP is exposing their biases. The beauty of it is that they aren't even fully aware how badly they come out of it.

With that, you've in all logical and philosophical sense given up any argument against your 1st amendment rights ever being curbed. You do know that right?

Based on your belief in an absolute first amendment: how do you prevent foreign nations from running full scale propaganda operations in the US with the purpose to divide, disinform, polarize, destroy the credibility of institutions, etc....?

Yeah... let the Russians run propaganda against us. It's well known propaganda doesn't work on Americans. We're immune. The founding fathers obviously anticipated the Internet and social media, and so all we need is just respect what they said to the letter. Nothing bad will happen to the country.

Take a look at how the left is treating conservatives who gasp go to a coffee shop in Portland.

This type of incident is exactly what the Russians are aiming for. Polarization, increased divisions between groups, constant cynicism, increased intolerance between 2 parties, groups deciding to use violence, etc etc...

You can't prevent individuals in other nations from sharing info, whether true or false.

What individuals do is irrelevant. Sharing information is not propaganda. To influence Facebook algos, you need coordinated actions of a large group. To run influential web sites, or podcast you need a large capacity to find and distribute controversial information.

There is a difference between individuals free speech, and full scale propaganda.

Let's say we're at war with Nazi Germany, would the free speech libertarians here let nazi Americans run large scale propaganda operations in the US aimed sinking American morale, while American soldiers are fighting and dying in Europe?

^^ the only fair effective way to fight back against a world of lies and deception is to allow a 1st amendment wherein people can freely speak truth to power.

You're not fighting back. You just creates clans of people living in echo chambers, and the country is collapsing every day a bit more under the false beliefs, ultra-polarized society, strident accusations, and increasingly, violent reactions.

Depends what you mean. Are you talking about a foreign economic tyrant owning the NYT? Or a globalist, also richest man on earth who gets billion $ deals w the CIA own the WashPo. Or perhaps you are talking about UK spies leaking salacious rumors about a POTUS candidate to effect our elections? Or are you talking about Russian nationals releasing actual emails sent by a POTUS candidate to the public? Or are you talking about China buying Hollywood studios to push their agenda? Or are you talking about Russian nationals buying divisive advertising?

I asked a simple question: would you let nazi Americans run large scale propaganda, for example showing captured or killed Americans, while American troops are fighting against the same nazis in Europe?

Historians will be aghast that Obama, whose victory was as much due to being pissed off at banks as anything else, did nothing.

Even more aghast at the fact that GWB let liars loans and other frauds happen for as long as he did. He had several agencies specialized in monitoring loans quality and integrity of the financial system.

Lets be clear. Answer this question: would you rather have a 1st amendment, or a ministry of truth? There is no 3rd option.

I choose a 1st amendment. You?

No, no, no...I steel manned your argument with my example of propaganda run by nazi Americans during a war against nazi. I get to do that because your position is absolute: people always have free speech, in all cases, period.

My position on the other hand is pragmatic and flexible: I recognize free speech, especially at the individual level, and I believe all ideas should be debated, however there are a few cases that should raise eyebrows, especially when the intent itself is to systematically mislead. Which outlet exactly should be prescribed is complicated. All I said is foreign enemy propaganda should typically be proscribed.

Covering this as "ministry of truth" is not a steel man, it's a straw man.

Collectivist are okay with trouncing on people as long as they are "outside of the group", while Constitutionalism favors the individual right over the group think. Collectivism lead to the formation of the Japanese Empire, Nazi Germany, and the USSR, it's an extremely dangerous ideology, and it's sad to see people here cling to it.

The way you use the world collectivist here is to mean tribalism. This is not what "collectivism" means. Tribalism is not an ideology, it is human pattern of thinking that underlies many ideologies.

By the way your opinions here display a strong tribalism with the American political right, as you combat ideas the "outside of the group" - the left - and almost all your thinking is strongly aligned with that of your group/tribe. Your reverence for your leader is also a tribal attribute.

You are arguing for a minister of truth. Yup, in your mind this level-headed administer of soft censorship only on important propaganda matters will be totes reasonable? What happens when Trump chooses Bannon as the minister of truth? What happens if the dems choose Ariana Huffington?

You are assuming there are no objective and reasonable criteria that can be used, and that therefore this will always be left to the individual judgement of whoever is in power. This is typically not the case.

As a simple example other countries have strong libel laws or laws against hate speech. Some European countries have laws forbidding denying the Holocaust. Big deal.

You want to call this "minister of truth"? Whatever. You want to equate this to some sort of "Baghdad Bob"?... hummm just a little bit disingenuous.

You are missing his point. Everyone is tribal by nature, just like everyone is violent by nature.

Libertarian values of individualism over collectivism is the only viable solution.

When you talk of Nazi Germany, or imperial Japan, these were systems that had private enterprises as a form of organization. They were not collectivists. Collectivism is a form of organization that removes private ownership, and Nazi Germany, or imperial Japan SIMPLY DID NOT DO THAT.

You are right that Nazi Germany, or imperial Japan, insisted on the importance of the group, and their superiority as a group, which is tribalism, not collectivism. Words matter.

As far as your ideology of Libertarianism: the idea that people should be pure individuals and totally free is pure hypocrisy as far as I can tell. People always do some things in common. And when you live in a city, almost everything is in common: sewers, roads, transportation, laws, cops, justice, insurance, education, etc, etc... Your freedom ends, where the freedom of the next guy starts, which is in front of your nose. When there is a plague, people get together and organize better sewers. When there are barbarians at your gate, people get together and fight them. When there is a flood, people who are unaffected help the others. The way humans organize their lives is always in a top down system, that then has to leave sufficient scope for bottom up individual initiatives. This has been the pattern for all of human civilizations. The only exception was probably people living on a wild frontier. Some Americans apparently still think they are on one.

Libertarianism is about personal autonomy, not anarchy. So yes libertarians do believe in a police force and, yes, a military, because part of personal autonomy is being in a safe environment where its even possible. So anything to preserve the ability of society to provide personal autonomy is okay when given to the state.

Exactly, and when some private cartel extort you economically you expect the government to help you and preserve your autonomy, just like you expect it to help you physically when you are attacked by a gang. It's called regulation. That's libertarians roll on the floor convulsing.

Which is fine, it's patrick's right to do so. But at least he's not doing it to silence dissenting viewpoints from his own, he's applying the rules evenly across the board which shows that he's being philosophically consistent.

Ah... here we go. So you don't believe in an absolute right to free speech. Is that right?

Germany and Japan were crushed militarily, but it was collectivism that caused them to engage in conflict in the first place. Hitler dehumanized non-aryans and used pro aryan collectivist propaganda to launch his invasion of non-aryan lands. Japan used a similar strategy.

Tribalism can be political (communism), it can be nationalistic (Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are excellent examples of that), or it can be religious (cults and Islam are excellent examples). Almost any human groups: family, company, military, church, etc... have tribal components to various degrees.

But we're not in a war. BTW, the same excuse was used with the Dixie Chicks, but at least then we had 100k's of boots on the ground in Iraq.

We don't have a quarter of a million troops deployed in the Ukraine.

There is no consensus that there is an "Enemy".

Well how many troops do we have in Poland and what do Russians think of such NATO expansion? Enemy is relative: it's the guy on the other side. At the very least in a geopolitical competition. There is little doubt that Russia will do what it can to try to undermine the US: just look at their help to Syria (what is the goal outside opposing the US?). Just listen RT or read zerohedge (often quoted by people here): these are not friendly to US institutions.

"Gay McDougall, a member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, cited estimates that 2 million Uighurs and Muslim minorities were forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in the western Xinjiang autonomous region. "

And what’s the UN gonna do? They are meaningless, effeminate, and ineffective.

The UN is not a separate entity or an independent arbitrator. In fact China has a veto in the UN, so it's kind of silly to ask they will do. More relevant is what Trump will do, and will probably look at it with envy and tweet some congratulations.

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